Update 1.6/Part 3: PvE Content and General Notes
New Player Experience *The new player experience has been updated to better ease new players into Firefall. *New players will begin in the Battle Lab after they select their battleframe. In the Battle Lab, players will learn basic ground movement, how to fire their weapon, and how to jump and use jump jets. *Upon exiting the Battle Lab, players will be taken to Copacabana where they are given several tasks that teach them about the world, content, and systems up to level 10. Instanced Content New core missions are now available up to level 40. *Everything is Shadow *Bathsheba *Crash Down (Epic) *Razorwind *No Exit *Safe House *Trespass *Catch of the Day *Taken *Off the Grid *Consequence *Prison Break (Epic) *Accelerate *Icebreaker (Epic) *Agrievan *Unearthed (Epic) *S.O.S. *Vagrant Dawn (Epic) *Gate Crasher *Razor’s Edge (Epic) Epic Missions can now be played in Challenge mode and Hardcore mode. *Challenge mode is available at +3 levels from the mission’s default level requirement. *Hardcore mode is available at max level only. *Both modes are accessible at the Armored Dropship in Copacabana, Transhub, Thump Dump, or Sunken Harbor. *Players can also queue for these instances from the Looking for Group tool (Default hotkey: “K”). *Players will now enter the battle lab with their selected battleframe equipped instead of wearing a civilian outfit. Defense of Dredge *Players are now able to enter the Defense of Dredge, a 10 Player, level 40 raid mission which is accessible from any mission dropship. Team up with fellow ARES pilots to save the town of Dredge from the encroaching enemy forces. Holdout: Jericho Holdout *In holdout players must defend a Melding Repulsor from waves of Chosen until the Repulsor is destroyed, everyone in the squad becomes incapacitated, or if the squad chooses to leave by using the dropship that arrives between rounds. *Each round gets progressively more difficult and squads are challenged to hold out for as many rounds as possible. *If a squad chooses to leave between rounds they will receive full rewards for the amount of waves they cleared during their holdout session. *If a squad fails they will receive half the reward they had accumulated during their holdout. *Holdout is available for squads of up to 5 players and only available at maximum level. *Holdout rewards Crystite, experience and modules. *The blog on Holdout can be found here. Open World *Points of Interest in Coral Forest and Sertao have received a visual update to accent their role in the world of Firefall. Areas that have been updated are: *Copacabana *Trans-Hub *Nutretic *Fortaleza Antigua *Empire Macarthur *Dredge *The Nest *Tecumseh Airbase *F.O.B. Sagan Coral Forest and Sertao Jobs *The ARES jobs across Coral Forest and Sertao have been updated with new locations as well as adding one new objective types and updating another objective type: *Area Collect – Players must defeat enemies until an object is dropped on the ground, this object will function similarly to the crashed thumper parts. Players must pick up the part and deliver it to a set location to complete this job type. *Area NPC Push – Players must escort an NPC through dangerous territory. The NPC will only continue to move as long as players are close by and will stop and either cower or fight when enemies appear. *Please note: At this point in time the NPCs will be unable to be damaged or killed. This may be reviewed or changed in the future. *Obstacles that players can use for cover have been placed in all regular combat spaces in the open world. *Several bandit outposts have been added to the open world. These provide a consistent amount of bandits in a single area and are largely used for ARES Jobs. Open World Jobs *Moving forward players will receive jobs directly from NPCs instead of job boards. *When a new job is available players will see a yellow ARES icon on their map which indicates the location of the NPC who starts the job. *Upon completion each individual ARES job will have a short cooldown before it can be accepted again (if it is a repeatable job). *A purple ARES icon is displayed when a repeatable job is available that the player has already completed previously. *A grey ARES icon will appear when a mission is unavailable due to job being on cooldown or the player not having attained a high enough level to accept the job. *ARES mission spawn locations have been adjusted, meaning that the same amount of content is available but will spawn in fewer overall locations. Encounters *Some wandering encounters have had variations added to them. *Bandit Caches in Sertao can now spawn as Chosen Caches. *Bandit Campfires in Sertao can now spawn as Chosen Camps. *Bandit Campfires in Sertao can now spawn as Bug Nest variations. *Crossfire events can now spawn as Bandits or Chosen vs. local creatures in both Sertao and Coral Forest. *Firefight events now have a chance to spawn as Accord vs. local creatures in both Sertao and Coral Forest. *The wounded tanken event will now always result in players fighting Big Brother for their reward. *The Brontodon King will now return to his spawn location if he wanders too far away from it. *The Brontodon King is now level 28 with level 28 rewards. *Added a spawn point to the motor pool North of Copacabana. *Players who are defeated during the glider training outside of Copacabana will now respawn near the glider pad. Skydock *The Skydock event has been significantly changed towards becoming a more inclusive, zone-wide event. Its current iteration is now more representative of its narrative importance: supplying the Chosen warfront. *Rather than starting after a random length cooldown, the Skydock facility must be supplied by completing Accord Thumper events. After it is fully supplied, the Chosen will attack the Skydock facility. The Skydock supply percentage can be observed in the activity log while near the Skydock facility and Watchtowers. *Accord Thumper events occur near certain Watchtowers while the tower is controlled by players. Accord Thumper events have a short warmup period while the Thumper is reloaded and targeted, allowing some time for players to rally at the Thumper. *Rare rewards from completing the Skydock event are also available via Skydock Supply Officers at thumping Watchtowers once players have earned enough reputation with the Skydock Command faction. *Skydock Supply Officers also sell Accord Thumper Beacons, which allow players to jump start an Accord Thumper event and skip its warmup period. Orbital Comm Tower *OCT has received some updates which include the following: *Spawns in the satellite guard and drop pod waves have been balanced and tuned to use the proper spawning mechanics (as a result, new Chosen mobs are present!) *The event tracker has been modified to be more condensed and to improve clarity of the current satellite states. *If all three satellites are activated, even if target has not been locked, the event timer will pause. This will prevent the situation where the event timer will expire even if the satellites are nearing target lock. *Added support for the bounty system. *New Treasure Phase: *After completing OCT players will be awarded with special single use gliders. These gliders allow players to scan the forest and deserts of Sertao for hidden artifacts, salvage and other valuables which are located in Treasure Caches. *Treasure Caches contain data fragments which can be turned in at OCT for OCT specific rewards or to vendors at the Corporation Headquarters for corporation reputation. Bounties *Access the bounty interface by pressing the "H" button and selecting "bounties" from the categories on the left or by going to the Dashboard and selecting Activities - Bounties. *There are three categories of bounties "Quick, Daily and Weekly". *Quick – Players are provided with a list of three objectives which upon completion will grant small rewards. Quick bounties are able to be completed via regular gameplay actions. *Examples of Quick Bounties: Kill X Creatures, Travel X distance on a LGV, Perform X critical hits, etc. *Daily – Players are provided with a list of five specific objectives which reset at 00:00 UTC each day. These objectives will be more involved than the Quick Bounties and can require specific activities. *Examples of Daily Bounties: Finish X thumping runs, Complete X wandering encounters, Earn X Crystite, etc. *Weekly – Players will receive a list of three large objectives to complete during their week of gameplay with new objectives offered at 00:00 UTC Tuesdays. *Examples of Weekly Bounties: Complete X ARES Missions, Complete X Daily Bounties, Kill X Enemies (higher amounts than daily or quick). *The blog on Bounties can be found here. Objectives and Rewards *Players will receive rewards which are tailored to their level and based on the amount of time estimated to complete specific objectives. In this scenario Weekly Bounty rewards will be much larger than Quick Bounty rewards. *Some rewards will only be available via the Bounty system. *Rewards can vary from Crystite, to modules, equipment upgrade parts or even a special gold box with bounty system exclusive rewards! *It is important to note that each player will have their own individual daily goals which will keep players a bit spread out to avoid congestion in specific hunting/mission areas. *If a player wants to reroll their current bounty goals, they can spend a small amount of red beans to reroll their objectives. User Interface *Army application messages are now limited to 255 characters. *A new equipment slot has been added to the user interface which allows players to hotkey their preferred glider and vehicle. Character Select Screen *Players will now be able to view a list of all their available characters. *The character select screen displays the player’s character, character name, level and selected battleframe. *Allows players to manage their characters and character slots, including creation, deletion and restoring deleted characters. *Deleted characters over level 10 will remain in the character slot for 7 days, allowing players to restore the character if they change their mind. After 7 days the character will be permanently deleted. *A tracker is displayed on the right hand side with the latest community news and login alerts. *New two-tone hair colors are now available in the New You. Daily Login Rewards *Each day players are given a daily login reward. Past, current, and upcoming daily login rewards can be viewed from the Dashboard (Default “K”). *Additional rewards are provided for consecutive daily login streaks. Dashboard *The in-game Dashboard has been retooled and gives access to various functions: **Displays VIP Status **Displays amount of friends online **Home **Used to claim timed playtime rewards **Display Red Bean Store items **Display events **Activities ***Select from the battleframes you have unlocked for a role to define when choosing activities. **Bounties ***Displays current active bounties. ***Join other players working on group bounties. ***Displays bounty point progress bar for rewards and claim rewards. **Looking for Group ***Random ****Queue for random Hardcore or Challenge content. ****Earn a bonus reward for queueing for a random group. *5 Man **Select specific instanced content to queue for. *PvP **Queue for a PvP match. *Campaign **Queue for available Campaign Missions. *Events **Queue for any available special events that are occurring. *Squad Builder **Form a squad or search for other squads to participate in content as specified by the squad leader. *Red Bean Store *Access the Red Bean Store *Login Rewards **View the Login Rewards screen. Lockboxes *Lockboxes can now be obtained from rewards screens. *There are four different types of lockboxes: **Weapon Lockbox **Ability Lockbox **Armor Lockbox **Module Lockbox *Lockboxes can be opened using lockbox keys which are earned via gameplay rewards, elite ranks, or by purchasing a key from the Red Bean store. When earned via normal gameplay, players will obtain lockbox key fragments which can be combined into a full-sized key. *Opening a lockbox awards the player with Crystite, a small amount of experience and an Uncommon (Green) item of the specified lockbox type or a cache containing an item of a higher quality. *Example: After opening a Weapon Lockbox the player receives Crystite, experience and a “Rare Weapons Cache”. The Rare Weapons Cache does not require a key and can be opened immediately to receive a rare quality weapon (or an epic weapon cache). *This means when a lockbox is opened the player has a chance to receive a rare cache, then an epic cache with the possibility of containing a “Treasure Cache” which will award guaranteed legendary item fragments. Red Bean Store *New warpaints are available for purchase: **Selene **Endymion **Rosemary **Smoke **Menace **Black Widow **Serenade **Temptation *New cosmetics are available for purchase: **Gold Cigar **Rising Star Crown **Forest Hunter **Eviljaw Skull Helmet **Blood Oath **The Atrahasis **Mesh Bunny Ears *Vehicle rentals are available for 3 day, 7 day, and 30 day time periods: **Cobra R-54 LGV **Vapor LGV **Cheetah Model S LGV **Omnidyne-M LGV **(NEW) Accord A-10 Mamba LGV **Snowsquall MGV **Players that own permanent vehicles retain them as permanent vehicles. *Glider pad rentals are available for 3 day, 7 day, and 30 day time periods: **Royal Glider Pad **Quicksilver Glider Pad **Dusk Glider Pad **Sunrise Glider Pad **Reusable Jump Pad **Reusable Hover Pad **Players that own permanent glider pads retain them as permanent glider pads. *Pets **Panda **Harpy *Boosts **50% XP Boost – 1 hour duration **50% Reputation Boost – 1 hour duration **Combat Enhancer – 1 hour duration ***10% damage reduction ***Bonus does not apply while in Arena PvP **Speed Enhancer – 1 hour duration ***5% movement speed ***Bonus does not apply while in Arena PvP **Ultimate Enhancer – 1 hour duration ***25% ultimate recovery speed ***Bonus does not apply while in Arena PvP **The Skylord – 1 hour duration ***30% jet energy ***Bonus does not apply while in Arena PvP *Emotes **/fingerwag **/sleep **/cutthroat **/sad *Consumables **Security Key **Popup Drop: Omnidyne-M Fleet Calldown ***Call in a beacon for an event all players on a shard can enjoy. For the duration an Accord Dropship will drop crates from the sky that award small amounts of Crystite when destroyed. Interact with the beacon to borrow the all-new Omnidyne-M MGV for limited use. **SIN Speaker **SIN Messenger **Tinker’s Tools **Large Experience Pack **Massive Experience Pack **The cost of a Perk Respec has changed to 2 Red Beans **Players now get a free Perk Respec daily *Decal **Cute Bunny **Panda Graphics *Added Blob shadows to all characters except dropships. These shadows help players determine their current height and orientation to the ground beneath them. *Memory *Optimized memory, especially in busy areas to improve overall performance. *Performance *Virtual textures are now more responsive. Textures load in a lot faster from local cache, e.g. when you turn around quickly, during character select or in SINvironment. *Bigger performance improvement in cities, especially with many animated props and monster props. *Some performance improvements when loading into a new zone (removed inefficiencies in audio and visual effects code). *Improved performance of weapon and ability visual effects. Audio *Dramatically revised mix to leverage high dynamic range. Now in moments of quiet, jumpjets, footsteps, and other foley are more forward in the mix, but when the player gets into combat, combat-related audio such as player weapon fire, remote weapon fire, and projectile impacts move to the foreground. *Fixed a code issue that low-passed projectile impacts and any audio emitting from tiny objects, which restored a large amount of punch to those sounds (like grenades and explosions). *Overhauled the reverb system so that the reverberation accurately reflects the environment players are in. *Revised and reviewed NPC and creature vocalizations so that they are all hooked up to play the correct audio in combat. Brought the vocalizations forward in the mix so they are easily discernible in combat. *Hooked up new sounds for NPC and creature gibbing. *Brought player vocalizations forward in the mix to give players more connection to their avatars. *Balanced weapon audio so all weapons occupy the same level in the mix. *Made a detailed mix pass on the NPE, clarifying the mix. This included revising Vorgoth voice over so that it is more intelligible, reducing dropship fly-in levels, and fixing various bugs in the NPE. *Made numerous revisions to ambient audio. Also replaced all box emitters in Coral Forest with sphere emitters because of a code issue that was preventing box emitters from working properly. *Revised LGV audio so that the experience of driving the LGV is more engaging. *Revised NPE and mission music so that transitions are smoother and volumes are balanced. *Updated the firing sound effects for multiple weapons so that they feel more empowering. *Updated gun foley sounds to better match changes in reload speed and for the player going into and out of iron sights. General *Changed day-night-cycle to be 75% day and 25% night. *French and German localizations are temporarily disabled as the team continues to localize all of the new strings. Text localization for these languages will be contained in a patch estimated to be released one week following the 1.6 Update.